| The Trials of Young Joseph F. Smith (4) |
| a mission in paradise | ||||
| Mission
call at 15 Uncle Silas Kula Food |
Joseph was fifteen and a half when
he was called to the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands. His father's seventy-four-year-old
uncle, Silas Smith, was also called and would be his first companion, in
the Kula region of Maui. It was a beautiful setting on the hillside of Haleakala,
but Joseph missed his friends. The food was strange, and often in short
supply. The customs were foreign, and he could not understand the language.
Other missionaries received mail routinely, but for six months there was
none for him. Finally a letter arrived from George A. Smith, the first communication
from home in six months. |
Silas
Smith (1822–1892) was a son of Asahel Smith and Elizabeth Shilling.
He served as mission president from July 24, 1855, to October 6, 1857. short supply: See Foseph F. Smith: 1857 Diary, beginning with February 17 >. |
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| Reply to George A. Smith | "With Joy and Grattitude I
Recieved your Letter," Joseph replied. "It mead my hart rejoice
when I Saw it for It was the first Letter that I had resieved from the valleys
of the mountains. You must exkuse all the mistakes. As you well know, I
am A new beginner. I am young and yet have time to Learn." |
JFS
to George A. Smith, October 20, 1854. |
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| Devotion
to mission I had rather die than disgrace Those that have gone before |
After reporting his travels, his impressions of the islands and the welfare of the missionaries, Joseph asked that he be remembered in family prayers, "that I may holde out faithful and bair off my calling with honour to myself and the cause in which I am ingaged. I had rather die on this mission than to disgrace myself ore my calling. These are the Sentiments of my hart. My prairs is that we may holde out faithful to the end, and evetually be cround in the kingdom of god with those that have gon before us." | |||
| Writes his sister | Life on the islands was humbling. After four
months he felt he had learned a great deal. "I could give you much
council, that would be benifisial to you as long as you live upon this earth,"
he wrote Martha Ann. |
JFS to Martha Ann Smith (Harris), January 28, 1855, Joseph Smith Family Papers. | ||
| Melancholy Later forgets he was with Silas |
At the time Joseph himself was quite "down harted,"
perhaps struggling with depression. But he followed his own counsel and
kept it to himself. So great was his loneliness that in later years he entirely
forgot his first six months were spent with Silas, and conference president
Francis A. Hammond called on them frequently. |
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| I was sent alone |
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JFS
to Moses Thatcher, July 25, 1881. Thatcher, opening the Mexico mission,
was very discouraged. Three months after Joseph and Silas arrived, Silas wrote, "Cousin Joseph and my self have been together the most of the time since we arrived here." Silas's P.S. to JFS letter to George A. Smith, February 6, 1855. Also, F, A. Hammond diary, January 15, 29, 31, February 3, April 4, 1855. While Joseph has his facts wrong, his letter is probably true to his feelings at the time. |
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| No friend but God |
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| No companion | I had no companion and had to bear my Joys and griefs in
solitude, … |
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| I know what it is to be away from
friends, in a foreign land, among the "heathen," and "without
hope," almost, for I have been there. |
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| Cheerful
letters Learns language in 6 months A few hard words |
Nevertheless, his letters were always cheerful, expressing gratitude to the Lord and his servants, and determination to fulfill his calling honorably. He worked hard to learn Hawaiian, and at April conference he addressed the congregation in the native tongue, "causing all the saints to rejoice exceedingly. He has only been here 6 months. The Lord has been with him in getting hold of the language. He spoke very feelingly & I was rejoiced much to hear his voice in the native language." Unfortunately Joseph had "a few hard words" with another elder the next evening and President Hammond was obliged to give them "some good hints … about giving way to their evil passions." | F, A. Hammond diary, April 8-10, 1855 | ||
| Made
conference president 41 branches |
Joseph had a good command of the language and, most of the
time, a good spirit about him. So when Hammond was transferred to Lanai,
Joseph was made president of the Maui-Molokai conference. At age sixteen
he was responsible for 1,253 Saints in forty-one branches—with three
other Utah missionaries (one of whom suffered paranoid delusions). |
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| History, condition of Hawaiian culture | It was a challenging assignment. Since the arrival of Captain
Cook (1778), the native population had been decimated by disease. Once a
proud people, Hawaiians were awed by Western military might. They banned
many traditional customs and declared the kingdom officially "Christian."
Vast sandalwood forests were stripped for export as the kingdom was exploited
economically as well as politically. Their culture in shambles, Hawaiians
beyond Honolulu lived in filthy squalor. Many were addicted to liquor; and
traditional sexual promiscuity brought syphilis to virtually every village.
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| Smallpox epidemic | Those who joined the church were disillusioned
when priesthood blessings did not spare their families in the smallpox epidemic
of 1853. |
"Mormons and the Smallpox">. | ||
| Printing press | In addition, they had sacrificed a great deal to purchase a printing press to print the Book of Mormon, hymns, and other literature in Hawaiian. But when it arrived, President Young directed it be sent to San Francisco, where George Q. Cannon would use it to print a newspaper in English. By the time Joseph arrived, there was little enthusiasm for the church. | Ibid. | ||
| Colony
at Lanai Demands for money Crop failures |
A gathering place had been designated at Palawai on Lanai,
where Saints could be free of corrupting influences. Elder Hammond presided
and the strongest members were called as pioneers. Unfortunately, this left
many branches without effective leadership. The people grumbled about constant
pleas for donations for the colony, in addition to tithing and feeding and
housing the missionaries. Worms ate the colony's first crops, then there
was drought, problems with the cisterns, and so on. The pioneers returned
to their homes poorer than when they left and spreading dissatisfaction. |
F, A. Hammond diary, December 27, 30, 1854; April 9-10, June 9, July 5, 1855. | ||
| Assigned to Hawaii | Under these conditions Joseph presided over Maui for one
year. The number of baptisms barely outpaced the number of deaths. Next
he presided, successively, over the two conferences on the Big Island. The
living conditions were wretched, and despite his resolve not to be a grumbler,
on occasion he just had to let it out: |
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| Apalled by living conditions |
|
JFS diary, July 4, 1856. | ||
| Sexually-transmitted diseases from wickedness | Syphilis and other sexually-transmitted diseases ran rampant
throughout the islands. Like most haoles, including Mormon missionaries,
Joseph attributed these conditions to sin. "The fact of it is, their
nation is roten, and stink because of, and with their own wickedness, and
but fiew are exceptionable." |
Ibid. | ||
| A sight that was worth all other ‘sights' | Occasionally, they didn't seem so bad—they could even
be enticing. One evening on Maui, "we seen a sight that was worth all
other ‘sights' that I ever seen. It was composed of 3 native girls
engaged in a Hawaiian dance. It is more than I can describe." A year
later this sexually maturing teenager observed, "My thoughts have been
curious a long back." |
JFS diary, May 1, 1856; April 30, 1857. | ||
| Half Molokai Saints excommunicated | Joseph's final assignment, as president of the Molokai conference,
was especially challenging. Over a hundred members had been excommunicated
in the previous twelve months, nearly half of the membership on the island. |
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| Meeting house now carpenter's shop |
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JFS diary, April 22, 1857. | ||
| Calvinist jab | The next morning they were forced to accept the kindness
of a Calvinist who crowed, "Here is some food. Your Mormons won't feed
you!" |
JFS diary, April 23, 1857. | ||
| Traveling around the island, they found one branch in fairly
good condition, but it became increasingly difficult to obtain food and
lodging. Finally Joseph let loose in his diary. |
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| Joseph's anger |
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JFS diary, May 4, 1857. | ||
| Net
membership losses Brigham Young: end mission |
In five months Elders
Smith and Dowell baptized 3 and excommunicated 36. Colleagues on other islands
also reported net losses. From July 1855 to October 1857 mission membership
fell nearly 25%, from 4,200 to 3,200. Brigham Young decided to abandon the
mission. |
Later President Young would withdraw missionaries from all missions to defend Utah against an advancing federal army, but he had virtually given up on the Sandwich Islands mission before that decision was implemented: "The reports from the Sandwich Islands have for a number of years agreed in one thing," Brigham Young wrote mission president Henry Bigler September 4, 1857, "and that is that the majority of the Saints on these islands have either been dead or are dying spiritually. It would appear that they occasionally, spasmodically resusicate for a moment, only to sink lower than they were before. …You had better wind up the whole business and return with most of the Elders as soon as possible." Honolulu Minutes, October 16, 1857. | ||
| Joseph's progress | Joseph had arrived in the islands a lonely, contrite, anxious boy. He overcame his lonliness, endured hardship, and returned to Utah a strong, confident, nineteen-year-old preacher of the gospel. | |||